August 16, 2007 @ 1:15 pm

Trapped in the Closet: Chapter 51 1/2?

by: Julianne Shepherd

R. Kelly hosts 13-22 premiere in NYC; can't stop, won't stop inventing chapters.

Last night in Manhattan, an intimate audience of about 250 people convened at the IFC Center to screen Chapters 13-22 of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" song cycle / soap opera. And "Trapped," it's true, has waded even further into the deep end of the swimming pool. But according to Kells himself, we haven't even scratched the surface of his epic. Dressed in a black military jacket and ubiquitous sunglasses at night, the Pied Piper of R&B informed the crowd that, as of this moment, there are about 30 more chapters to go. "I ain't got a job, I ain't got nothin' to do but sit around and think of new chapters all day. I'm up to chapter 51 1/2 now," he said emphatically. "I just need the budget." The current installment offers much-needed back story to the sometimes-bizarre prior chapters, revealing labyrinthine plot twists and turns that seem like Kells either labored over forever, or invented on the spot. "Don't nobody ask me how I write this," he told the theater, "because I do not know how to explain it. It just keeps rhyming. If I don't rhyme, I can't tell the story." That how he devised a midget character, he explained, because it "rhymed with Bridget." Still, Kelly did attempt to explain the song cycle - which began with a love triangle and grew into something more like a love octagon - by comparing it to aliens. Like aliens, Kelly said, "It has come down to show us new genres and new ways to bring us together." Showing new direction, and new self-awareness, the latest chapters are crazier - and purposely funnier - than the first 12. File 13-22 somewhere between In Living Color, Lost and the overblown telenovelas your tia watches. (But with jokes about En Vogue.) This installment introduces a few new characters, all played by Kelly - including the stuttering Pimp Luscious, Nosy Rosie's grey-bearded husband Randolph, and a new older preacher leading a gospel choir. That latter part, by the way, with the gospel choir? It adds harmonies that switch up the sound of "Trapped," if for a moment. "I think somebody's gonna get tired of that melody," Kelly told the audience. "Like, can't he remix that?" The DVD containing Chapters 13-22 will drop August 21, and promo posters already brag that it's been "shipped platinum." But according to Kelly, launching his idea wasn't all cake and ice cream, despite his track record of hits. After the screening, he explained that when he presented the chapters to his record label, Jive, "They was looking at me like I was crazy. But" - he addressed Jive label prez Barry Weiss, who sat in a middle row - "thanks for the money." Later, Kelly retired with a small entourage to the afterparty at NYC's swank Gansevoort Hotel. He sat in a private cabana and sipped Dom Perignon, as DJ Beverly Bond worked the sound system. Even still, the night weighed with the subtext: R. Kelly's child pornography trial begins September 17 in Chicago.

Article tags: Chapters 13-22, Double Up, Kells, R. Kelly, Trapped In The Closet 

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